Does tracking time matter?

[Yora]

AD&D and basic both make a big deal of tracking how much time has passed when exploring a dungeon. For every encounter, a given distance of movement, or checking for traps, time is advanced for 10 minutes.

But does that matter in any way? After six turns a torch will have to be replaced, and after 24 times a lamp needs to be refuled, but that's really the only effect I am aware of. I don't think there are more than a small handful of spells whose duration is longer than one turn.

[viking vince]

1e has rules on resting after so many rounds of exploring or fighting. I don't have my DMG handy to provide the exact reference.

[Yora]

Basic also has one turn of rest for every five turns of exploration and combat. But all that does is decreasing the durationa of light sources by one turn and making an additional check for wandering monsters.
Every fifth wandering monster check you roll twice. That doesn't seem like it would make a noticable difference.

[hamlet]

You also need to keep track of it for rations and resting. Basically, you as the DM have to be aware of how far a PC can actually go before he just needs to sit down and rest for a while, possibly even get to a point where they're so far along they might need to camp in the dungeon.

And, of course, the all important wandering monster check.

Plus, presumably, they've got obligations outside that are pressing on their time, too.

It's largely the same reasons you track time in non-old school games.

[LibraryOgre]

I'd also point out that long-duration spells can make time tracking important.

Enlarge has a duration listed in turns. Tenser's Floating Disc, Unseen Servant, Darkness 15' radius, Fool's Gold ("How long until the orcs figure out we tricked them?"), Rope Trick, Strength, Web (if you don't set it on fire)... these are just a few spells from 1e's MU list that are listed in turns, and whose duration might become important in the course of an adventure.

[Yora]

Just checked the spells from the Basic Set again, and it turns out that almost all spells have their duration in turns and durations in rounds a very rare. (Much easier to track in combat than the annoying 1 round/level spells in 3rd edition.)
That's indeed a very obvious and highly important use for turns. Thanks.

[Khedrac]

Pretty much all versions of D&D have enough spells etc that tracking time matters. Also depending on how the adventure is written, it may be critical - a lot of the old adventures used to have timetables for events.
3rd Ed D&D did the world a favour (imo) by doing away with turns and just going straight from rounds to minutes, but the end result is the same.

All that said, having been playing D&D on and off since about 1984 I have never been in a game (either as DM or player) where time was tracked as closely as the rules appear to require. We have always just approximated it, usually the DM does this but occasionally the DM will consult with the players when working out elapsed time.
The only time unit usually tracked closely is the "day" (or the "sleep" in a Mystara Hollow World campaign).

[kyoryu]

In old school dungeon crawls, yes it matters. One of the constraints on your crawl is the supplies you have, and the threat of wandering monsters (which give no treasure, thus little xp) is a counter-pressure on being TOO cautious.

For an open-table game, tracking time on the macro-level matters, as characters may be recovering from wounds, training, etc., and making sure you only use characters that are actually available helps build the idea of the game as a consistent "world".

[Thrudd]

Others have pointed it out already, but yes. It is supremely important for the game to function as designed. Wandering monsters, spell effects, survival, fatigue, healing and recovery of spells, repopulation of dungeons, movement and travel all depend on time. If the decisions the players make about where to go and how to go there are to be of any consequence, then all those things need to matter.

Switching to narrative-time (ie not keeping track of actual time, but jumping from one relevant story-scene to the next) makes most of the game mechanics and limits extraneous/pointless. If it's an action game, where the players have characters with cool powers fighting battles, are expected to have access to all of those powers in every battle, and the in-between bits are covered by narrative and acting, then old style D&D is not the game you want. That's 4e, or Apocalypse World, or Feng Shui, or a lot of other more modern games.

[Yora]

Wandering monsters could also be checked every 120 feet of movement. Which you have to track anyway to know when a turn has passed. That's why I was wondering, not considering that spells have durations measured in turns.

[kyoryu]

Wandering monsters could also be checked every 120 feet of movement. Which you have to track anyway to know when a turn has passed. That's why I was wondering, not considering that spells have durations measured in turns.

But things apart from movement cause time to pass, and how careful you're being impacts your movement rate. There's a definite tension between "go fast and potentially stir up trouble/traps" and "go slow and get hit by random monsters".

[Tanarii]

It mattered a lot in the original concept of massive campaigns, in megadungeons. You have limited supplies, wandering monsters are a constant drain on resources (spells and hit points), and you expect to have to get into the dungeon and out again before the end of the session. Getting stuck in the dungeon is effectively a death sentence ... you'll eventually be whittled down, fighting in the dark, and out of food and water.

Time tracking really means the difference between accomplishing the session's goal, and having to turn back early before you accomplished it. Paying attention to elapsed time, available resources remaining, and knowing when to turn back, are all some of the more important player skills to learn. Along with careful mapping.

From a DM perspective it's important because it keeps the players from dawdling, being overly cautious about traps, or wasting too much time searching chambers for treasure and corridors for secret doors. They know they're on the clock.

Edit: it also matters on a campaign scale when you're talking about a massive campaign with many rotating groups of players of course. PCs can't be in two places at once. But campaign time at a different level from in-session exploration time.

[Jay R]

In every game in which we tracked it carefully, we learned exactly why it matters.

Without tracking time, you can easily spend what's supposed to be a week without ever stopping to eat or sleep.